Against Place (the Lyrebird Shows the Way)

In this essay Stuart Cooke argues against poetics of place. He begins by outlining three ways in which place-based thinking perpetuates elements imperialist practice. Chiefly, about place negates the diverse lives and forces upon a habitat depends. Drawing on work Heriberto Yepez, concludes that is an “absolutist fiction.” Instead, he turns to lyrebird (Menura alberti novaehollandiae) as conceptual totem for ethical, Australian poetics. Examining presence (or absence) selection late twentieth-century contemporary poems, outlines how non-Indigenous poets might learn from alternative, ecological not predicated eradication multispecies complexity. The with brief account superb lyrebird’s